Dear DirtBike – How ABOUT that progress report?!?  Let’s hear it for the improved grades, and let’s also keep up the good work!  I’m so proud of you, Son.  Sorry you missed the school dance last night because your cold is getting worse before it gets better.  As you said, though, since Miss D. is home sick with the flu, you wouldn’t have had a dance partner anyway.

Dear Bike Shop – YEAH for you!  The new seat post is perfect (size, color and price) and Princess Grace is happy to be back on the road. She’s hoping to hit some dirt tomorrow before the next terrible cold front brings some rain.

Dear Little Town up North – Thank you for the great workshop session yesterday.  It was really productive and I think we finally have all the bits and pieces we need to get the modeling finished and the master plan put to bed.  I’ll have you a complete list of projects by next week!

Dear Oven – I miss you. Yes, it’s been more than two years now since you keeled over.  Yes, I’ve compromised and adapted many of our favorite recipes for the crock pot or skillet, but honestly?  Roasts just aren’t the same.  I haven’t missed baking too much up to now, but I really really really want to bake cupcakes for St. Valentine’s Feast Day.  Soon we’ll be hauling you out, my old friend, and replacing you.  Very soon, indeed.

Dear Spinach Ravioli – Welcome to my favorite list.

Linking up with the Ladies at Suscipio.

::faithful

Praying for

• Mr. Pea, for a good meeting with the orthopedist, and a definitive diagnoses for  his knee problem.  This prayer will be quickly followed up with a prayer for patience, as our family doctor suspects it will take surgery to fix.

• springlike weather!
• daffodil leaves poking up out of the ground
• patient neighbors, as both our dogs are insistent on being good friends, digging under the fence to go visit each other.  (I suggested just putting a doggie door in the fence…)
• a phone call with Princess Pea.  It was so nice to hear her voice this morning.

::healthy

The veggies snuck away last week.  They’re coming back this week for sure, including snack times. The warmer weather and slightly longer days means I can get back to an evening walk with the dogs! They love it, and every extra step I can take makes me happy.

Third post at Suscipio is coming up.  Real Food, a subject that I’m totally passionate about.

::creative

Valentines!  Silly, I know, but I still make Mr. Pea and the kids a Valentine. DirtBike and I spent some time looking at all the ‘Superman’ and ‘Hello Kitty’ Valentines in WalMart on Saturday afternoon,even though he doesn’t need to have Valentines for school any more.  Does anyone remember decorating shoeboxes, or making little pockets out of paper plates in grammar school to put on your desk for collecting Valentines?

::delicious

• Pork Roast, Sweet Potato and Parsnip Mash, Green Beans
• Spinach Ravioli with Bolognese Sauce
• Flank Steak with Couscous, Grapefruit Salad
• Balsamic Chicken with Spinach, Apple and Lentil Salad
• Left Over Smorgashboard!
• Orange Ginger Salmon, Saffron Rice, Peas
• Turkey Paninis

::fun

Saturday was our local MathCounts competition and we spent most of the day at a local university.   The MathCounts Competition Program is a national middle school coaching and competitive mathematics program that promotes mathematics achievement through a series of fun and engaging “bee” style contests.  I’ve been the emcee/coordinator of our local program for a couple of decades now, and I always drag my family along to volunteer and help out.  It’s astonishing how brilliant some of these kids are.  And this year?  The top winners were all SIXTH GRADERS!!!.

Saturday evening was spent with friends, piling in their garage to watching “Groundhog Day” on their enormous outdoor projector screen. (It was a little too chilly to actually watch the movie outdoors.) Eating ribs and drinking beer may or may not have been involved.

::looking ahead

Another Ordinary Time week.  DirtBike has a research paper due next Monday, so he’ll be writing this week.  The Architect is on the robotics team at school, and they only have a few more days to finish their robot for an upcoming competition.  It’s supposed to throw a frisbee and climb a jungle gym type structure.  I have another workshop meeting out-of-town on Thursday, which means a few hours of audiobooks and singing out loud in the car!

Linking up at Suscipio – come join us!

Dear Mom and Dad – I’m so happy you came down to Texas today for our *sniff* “Very Last Grandparent’s Day Ever”. *sniffle*  It’s hard to believe that we’ve been at St. Andrew’s School for eighteen years.  Eighteen years of Catholic School Week, eighteen years of book fairs, field trips, Advent Angels, Mardi Gras Shoebox Parades, school pictures, Spirit Days, concession stand duties, History Fairs, book reports and basketball games. Eighteen years. Wow.

Dear Bacon Factory – Really?

Who knew?  PiG!  It’s Gluten Free!!

I have to tell Jenny about this so maybe she can have Gluten Free pigs on her homestead!

Eczema – When I asked you to go away, I meant away as in “away from my entire body”.  I didn’t mean away as in move from one arm to the other, or just spreading across the stomach.  I certainly didn’t mean away as in “go start a patch on the right eyelid”.  THAT one proves that you are just plain mean.  Leave now. Go play with the gluten-free pigs. 

Dear Bike Shop – please hurry up with my seat post.  I miss riding my bike.  Mr. Pea’s bike is okay in a pinch, but his saddle rubs (Boy Seat!), and he doesn’t keep his derailleurs tuned up like I do.  I mean, I COULD take my seat post back from DirtBike, but then he wouldn’t be able to ride his bike, and besides, he already removed my seat and put his on the post.  And he notched a mark for his height.  And it would make me a Mean Mama to just take it back when I told him he could use it because the other seat post doesn’t fit in The Architect’s old bike frame, which he spent hours and hours reassembling into a ride-able bike after the Great Bicycle Break Up.  As a respectable local bike shop with super cool knowledgeable tattooed techs, you should just keep the $15 dollar seat posts in stock instead of the $100 seat posts. Who’s going to pay $100 for a seat post?  Seriously?  Not me!!

Dear WF-6 Interceptor Project – You blessed me with a lesson in patience this week.  I am so glad you are now a go.  The fact that new requirements and standards were officially published two days after the bid opening means that I get to redesign the meter station.  Thankfully, installing the meter station is at least a year out into the construction schedule, and after many, many years of experience, I had the foresight to include a sizable contingency allowance in the original budget for a possible redesign.  You’re welcome, Favorite Client!

Linking up with the Ladies at Suscipio.